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I have a little problem. I'm addicted to cookbooks, food writing, recipe collecting, and cooking. I have a lot of recipes waiting for me to try them, and ideas from articles, tv, and restaurants often lead to new dishes. I started losing track of what I've done. So now I'm taking photos and writing about what I've prepared—unless it's terrible in which case I forget it ever happened.

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Saturday, December 31, 2011

Coconut is great for holiday cookies as it provides instant flocking. Snowy, fluffy coconut is an easy decoration, and it would have been even better if I had used the regular kind. No, I had to go ahead and use the bag of natural, shredded coconut that I already had at home. The natural kind is delicious, and it has no added sugar, but the shredded pieces are smaller and less exciting-looking as a decoration. Next time, I might bother to get regular shredded coconut instead, but still, these cookies were cute and tasty just as they were. These sandwich cookies are the last ones I have to show from my cookie platter this year, and once again, they’re from last year’s Holiday Cookies publication. The recipe is also online. They weren’t difficult to make, but the dough was a little temperamental. It’s a somewhat dry and crumbly coconut dough, so you have to pack it a bit in an ice cream scoop to form domed shapes for baking. Once baked, the cookies held their shape well, and the filling was a simple schmear of vanilla buttercream.

As usual, flour, baking powder, and salt were sifted together into a bowl. Some shredded coconut was coarsely ground in a food processor and added to the flour. Butter, sugar, and brown sugar were creamed together in a mixer, and an egg and vanilla were added. The dry ingredients were slowly incorporated, and the dough was ready to be scooped. As I mentioned, the dough was a little crumbly and had to be packed firmly in an ice cream scoop to form domed shapes. The cookies baked for about twelve minutes and then were left to cool before being filled. The vanilla buttercream was an easy mix of softened butter, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla extract. The flat sides of half the cookies were spread with the buttercream, sandwiches with the other half of the cookies, and then rolled in shredded coconut.

One more detail I would add to the next-time file would be to slightly decrease the size. They were just a little bit bigger than I would prefer for a sandwich cookie. It might seem like I’m doing a lot of complaining about these cookies, but they were, of course, delicious or I wouldn’t be mentioning them at all. With a smaller scoop for the dough and regular shredded coconut for the decoration, we’ll have a completely perfect cookie next time.

These are so cute! I love the furry/snowy effect of the coconut, like the trim on Santa's coat. I want to try them, and would not complain if they were on the larger size, in fact I suspect I would appreciate that fact.

I LOVE coconut. These are gorgeous little cookies! I love that they look like little christmas ornaments. I wish I'd seen these a couple of weeks ago, but at least now I can make them and enjoy them all to myself :-) Happy New Year, Lisa!

I wondered how you managed to make those perfect little domes- I'm assuming the drier dough kept them from spreading in the oven. These, too, we absolutely delicious. I actually think yours are prettier than Martha's. I like the more delicate coconut flake- I think the larger flakes look messy.